Living Above Gender: Insights From Saint Maximus The Confessor

Living above Gender: Insights from Saint Maximus the Confessor
Doru Costache
Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer 2013, pp. 261-290 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/earl.2013.0016
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Living above Gender: Insights from Saint Maximus the Confessor

DoRu Costache
Sometimes, one nds in the Maximian corpus passages that reprimand gender, womanhood, marriage, sexuality, and pleasure. Analyzing some relevant texts, mainly from his Ambigua, this article proposes that the Confessor did not dismiss gender-related themes. Drawing on Paul, Gregory of Nyssa, and his own experience of holiness, Maximus was concerned with the misuse of gender in humanitys sinful condition, and with its virtuous restoration. He worked within a holistic, realistic, and spiritual framework, which led him to construe the spiritual lifestyle not as an abolishment of gender, marriage, and pleasure, but as a dispassionate and compassionate experience of human life.
The reader of Maximus the Confessors works nds a discord between his at times chastising phraseology regarding gender, sexuality, and pleasure, presented as sordid aspects of human nature, and his spiritual anthropology that generally depicts humankind, including married people, as called to a holy life. This tension denotes the complexity of his anthropological thinking, which cannot be reduced to either of the two sides. Whilst a reductionist approach leads to inevitable misinterpretations, like dismissing the Confessors musings on gender as unimportant within the context of his spiritual worldview,1 it is necessary to discern between his
In its original form, this paper was presented for Gender and Class in Byzantine Society, 16th Biennial Conference of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies (University of New England, Armidale NSW, Australia, 1618 April 2010). I am grateful to Bronwen Neil, Carole Cusack, Bogdan Bucur, Neil Ormerod, Mario Baghos, and the JECS reviewers, for their insightful observations on earlier versions of the article. 1. Cf. Fedor Stanjevskiy, Une anthropologie la base dune pense religieuse: Lunit de lhomme dans la thologie de Maxime le Confesseur, Forum Philosophicum 12 (2007): 40928, esp. 42425.
Journal of Early Christian Studies 21:2, 261290 2013 The Johns Hopkins University Press
262 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES
infrequent bursts of reprimanding phraseology and the actual content of the teaching. Such discernment is the task of this article, which aims to prove that whilst being primarily directed to a monastic readership, the Maximian corpus bears relevance to wider Christian milieus, thus sharing certain features in common with Byzantine hagiographical literature and its paradigms of holy life outside the monastic world. Below, I shall explore a series of passages from the Book of Difculties (better known as the Ambigua), in their immediate setting and with reference to themes in St. Paul and St. Gregory of Nyssa on which the Confessor obviously drew. Given the multi-layered character of the Confessors writings, in addressing these texts my intention is not to ascertain the existence of direct connections between themother than their having been authored by Maximus of course. I simply take them as glimpses of the complexity of his thinking on gender-related themes. The analysis will progress rst by considering a number of texts from Difculties 7, 10, and 67 (the latter together with To Thalassius 59),2 which rehearse themes from Gen 13 and Gal 3.28. The goal is to make sense of the occasional strident phraseology in the Confessors moralizing discourse, which, far from being unusual in Byzantine spiritual literature, cannot be taken as a consistent denial of gender-related aspects. Upon establishing that Maximuss anthropological thinking, which developed within a broad cosmological narrative, was both holistic and realistic, I shall argue that even when depicting perfection in terms of a state above genderidentied as virtuehe never envisaged a schematized, literally asexual, and disembodied human nature. To this end, I shall apply the famous distinction between the existential mode and nature to the state above gender, by which I hope to make clear that within his thinking the divine plan for humankind refers to our existential destination and not to our natural makeup. Furthermore, I shall utilize this distinction in association with the notion of realized eschatology, which in turn casts a new light upon the idea of a spiritually transformed humankind, in the here and now. The analysis will continue by examining two more notorious loci, in Difculty 41 (considered together with the prologue of To Thalassius, Difculty 42, and Chapters On Love 2.30) and another passage from Difculty 10. The goal is to highlight the Maximian contributions to a holistic spirituality, which built on the idea of the virtuous path as a transformative process with repercussions for gender-related aspects. Virtue will be discussed here from an existential and not an ethical viewpoint, as illustrating a lifestyle accessible to, and a common denominator for, all people. The article will
2. Also known, improperly, as Questions to Thalassius.
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end by pointing out the signicance of St.Maximuss approach, which draws on the experience of holiness. I shall argue that for the Confessor gender and sexuality were problematic only because their misuse caused tensions and addictions, preventing people from walking the path of holiness; likewise, that living above gender was for him not a spiritual victory over the gendered humankind, but instead represented the virtuous reorientation of the human energies toward dispassionate relationships; nally, that he considered dispassion as a steppingstone toward compassion for both celibate and married people. On Eve, Adam, and ByZantine pedagogical RhetoRic Maximuss depiction of the ascetic path is typical for the Byzantine monastic tradition, with its high spiritualizing standards and propensities. That said, since his personal journey exposed him to a variety of social contexts and his mind was set upon strong incarnational presuppositions, it comes as no surprise to nd throughout his writings a realistic and nuanced concept of the spiritual life,3 meaningful beyond cloistral experiences. Christoph Schnborn4 and Bronwen Neil5 rightly observed that by reinterpreting the virtuous journey as culminating in compassion and community, the Confessor made the ideal of living spiritually relevant to wider milieus. We cannot ignore the precedence of this message over Byzantine hagiography, which abounds in examples of holiness from all walks of life;6 Alexander Kazhdans silence regarding the signicance of the Maximian corpus for later Byzantine literature is unfortunate. Indeed, as we shall see below, although sharing in the ambiguities that characterized Byzantine society,7 along with addressing concrete aspects of lifelike gender,
3. Cf. Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 35, 3841. 4. Cf. Christoph Schnborn, Plaisir et douleur dans lanalyse de S. Maxime, daprs les Quaestiones ad Thalassium, Maximus Confessor: Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, Fribourg (25 septembre 1980), ed. Felix Heinzer and Christoph Schnborn (Fribourg: ditions Universitaires Fribourg, 1982), 27384. 5. Cf. Bronwen Neil, The Blessed Passion of Holy Love: Maximus the Confessors Spiritual Psychology, Australian EJournal of Theology, 2:1 (2004), at http://aejt.com .au/2004/vol_2,_no_1,_2004/. 6. See Alexander Kazhdan et al., A History of Byzantine Literature (650850) (Athens: The National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute for Byzantine Research, 1999); Alexander Kazhdan, A History of Byzantine Literature (8501000) (Athens: The National Hellenic Research Foundation, Institute for Byzantine Research, 2006). 7. For the ambiguities related to womanhood and gender, see Carolyn L. Connor, Women of Byzantium (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2004),
marriage, sexuality, and pleasureusually avoided by monastic authors,8 St. Maximus achieved a balanced synthesis of spiritual anthropology. The ultimate proof of this achievement is the acknowledgment, received during his lifetime, as a genuine father (abba) or spiritual guide, a fact illustrated by most of his literary productions which answer questions posed by various correspondents both from within and outside the monastic world.9 This synthesis was, and supposedly remains, relevant to any seeker of the authentic Christian experience, irrespective of gender and social status. This essay will show that this assessment withstands the scant examples of questionable phraseology that traverse the Maximian corpus. To this end, I shall briey discuss the Confessors portrayal of womanhood and sexuality, the latter in an implicit manner but nevertheless as a main issue, by analyzing the images and terms he used within two passages concerning Adam and Eve. Albeit a worthwhile topic, I cannot deal in detail with the phraseology of his moralizing discourse; this section is only meant to prepare us for the big question of whether there is more to Maximuss views of gender than his at times appalling rhetoric. Given the misunderstandings referred to in the introduction of this essay, to which I shall return, answering this question becomes an important task.
Eve as a Harlot The reader can possibly be startled when, for instance, he or she incidentally nds in the Confessors works such downgrading expressions like the designation of Eve as a harlot (), without her being indicated by name. The term occurs for instance in Difculty 7.10 Addressing the paradise narrative, Maximus reiterated the factors that shape human life, namely, our capacity for free choice () and desire or appetite
85; Editors Introduction to Byzantine Women: Varieties of Experience 8001200, ed. Lynda Garland (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006), xiiixix, esp. xiiixiv; Alexander Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex in the Fifth to Twelfth Centuries, Dumbarton Oakes Papers 44 (1990): 13143; Anna M. Silvas, Kassia the Nun c.810c.865: An Appreciation, in Byzantine Women (quoted above), 1739, esp. 18; General Introduction to Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Marie Talbot (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996), viixvi, esp. xxi, xiii. On marriage as an obstacle to holiness before ninth-century Byzantium, see Averil Cameron, The Byzantines (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 123. 8. Cf. Kazhdan, A History of Byzantine Literature (8501000), 214, 242. 9. Cf. Paul M. Blowers, Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor: An Investigation of the Quaestiones ad Thalassium (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 5256 etc.; Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 2021. 10. See PG 91:1092CD.
().11 More precisely he maintained that for Adam there were only two possibilities: either ascending to God, which would have led him to become one spirit with him ( , also , to be god by grace), or the union with the harlot that would have caused him to become one body with her ( , also , to become dust).12 The choice for either of the two possibilities depended entirely on the human will, which in turn was conditioned by desire. The way in which St. Maximus phrased the two possibilities evoke the imagery of 1 Cor 6.13,1516, by which, I assume, he suggested that the decision of Adam to follow Eves counsel was tantamount to preferring ()13 sexuality over the mystical and deifying experience. In other words, and beyond the immediate meaning of the text, in question was a certain lifestyle, not Eve as a person. The reprimanding of Eve was however a rhetorical device largely used at the time. Like many other early Christian and Byzantine authors,14 the Confessor seems to have considered Adam as the main protagonist of the scriptural narrative, the rst to be called to a holy life and a beneciary of divine blessings. This understanding is summarized by a Byzantine hymn (oikos) from the matins of the Sunday of Forgiveness, which afrms that paradise was planted for Adams sake ( ).15 In turn, by way of the aforementioned insult the Confessor provocatively ascribed to Eve the role of a trickster gure who lured Adam far from God and into the labyrinth of sexuality. This approach, again, was not infrequent in Byzantine hymnody and preaching. For instance, a hymn (the fourth at the Lord, I have cried out) from the vespers of the same Sunday of Forgiveness refers to Adam as beguiled by the words of a woman ( ),16 whereas the oikos referred to above
11. Cf. Jean-Claude Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme selon saint Maxime le Confesseur (Paris: Cerf, 1996), 18788, 19192; Philipp Gabriel Renczes, Agir de Dieu et libert de lhomme: Recherches sur lanthropologie thologique de saint Maxime le Confesseur (Paris: Les ditions du Cerf, 2003), 267313. 12. PG 91:1092D. Cf. Panayotis Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, in Maximus Confessor (cited above n.4), 26171, esp. 268; Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 189, 192. 13. PG 91:1092D. 14. Cf. Peter C. Bouteneff, Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), 2526. 15. Cf. (Athens: , no year), 72; The Lenten Triodion, tr. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London and Boston, MA: Faber and Faber, 1978), 175. 16. Cf. , 69; The Lenten Triodion, 169.
mentions paradise as closed because of Eve ( ).17 A generation after the Confessor, the famous preacher and hymnographer St. Andrew of Crete explicitly accused Eve of destroying humanitys opportunity to reach perfection, within a rhetorical context in which the Theotokos was construed as restoring that very possibility.18 Sharing in this tradition, Maximus branded Eve a prostitute because of her contribution in deterring Adam from the path of holiness. A factor that may have led the saint to the labeling of Eve as a harlot, and which moreover inspired his use of the Pauline imagery, could be the inuence (to my knowledge, not noticed by scholars) of a very popular story authored, according to tradition, by his own spiritual father, St.Sophrony of Jerusalem.19 I refer to the vita of Mary the Egyptian, who by her outrageous behavior as an Alexandrine adolescent embodied the infamous paradigm of the temptress, hedonistic and skilled in deception.20 The Confessor is likely to have appropriated aspects pertaining to this typology not just in this one instance but also when further tackling the ancestral fall, in Difculty 10.28 to which I shall soon turn. This case of multiple associations was not isolated, tting in the moralizing pedagogy common to other early Christian and Byzantine sources, as proven by Paul Blowers in his review of Maximuss thinking and its antecedents in ascetic literature.21 Indeed, together with praising the virtuous, the Byzantines cultivated the pedagogy of shaming the sinners. For instance, the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete (a liturgical composition which incidentally, in its nal recension, makes of St. Mary the Egyptian a protagonist in its own narrative) sought to gain similar moralizing effects when accusing King Solomon to be a lover of harlots.22 Contemporary researchers of the Maximian corpus should be mindful of the large use of such rhetorical devices in Byzantine monastic
17. Cf. , 72; The Lenten Triodion, 175. 18. Cf. Andrew of Crete, Oration on the Annunciation of the Supremely Holy Lady, Our Theotokos 5, in Wider than Heaven: Eighth-Century Homilies on the Mother of God, tr. and intro. by Mary B. Cunningham, Popular Patristics (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2008), 203. 19. On this writing and its authorship, see Introduction to Life of St Mary of Egypt, translated by Maria Kouli, in Holy Women of Byzantium (cited above n.7), 6593, here 6566. 20. Life of St Mary of Egypt, 1821 (ed. Kouli, 8082). For more examples in Byzantine literature, see Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex, 13739; Benedicta Ward, Harlots of the Desert: A Study of Repentance in Early Monastic Sources (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1987). 21. Cf. Blowers, Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy, 2873. 22. Cf. The Lenten Triodion, 225 (Tuesday of the rst Lenten week, ode 7.5).
literature,23 mainly aimed at a male readership and meant to further motivate the commitment to the angelic life of celibacy.
Eve as a Spouse Elsewhere in the Book of Difculties, and upon returning to the paradise narrative, the Confessor was reticent to castigate Eve. Specically, in Difculty 10.28,24 he employed a series of powerful metaphors, rendering the story of the fall as a radical change of lifestyle. This change consisted in an enthusiastic yet misinformed preference (in the darkness of ignorance, ) for earthly pleasures, instead of the light of God ( ). By this existential shift, Adam made death alive for himself throughout the course of this present age,25 thus choosing an existence reduced to mere mortality. The same understanding of the ancestral sin as a priority given to the somatic side and mortality reoccurred in the Great Canon, mentioned above.26 By contrast to the scornful approach of the previously analyzed passage, here the Confessor decided to present Eve, once more without naming her, as a spouse or companion (; lit. one inhabiting the same house) of Adam.27 For some reason, although Adams choice for a sensual life28 was again associated with his listening to Eve, the rhetorical invective against her seemed no longer appropriate. It becomes obvious that such excesses like calling Eve a prostitute cannot be treated outside their immediate context, and that very likely reproving Eve served as a pretext to address sexuality. What matters here though is the use of the term spouse, which may reveal an interest in the spirituality of the family and to which I shall return. Before that, however, an exploration of the theoretical presuppositions of this encompassing spirituality is in order. In the following pages, I turn to the theological, cosmological, and existential parameters of the Maximian assessment of gender.
23. Cf. Donna Kristoff, A View of Repentance in Monastic Liturgical Literature, St. Vladimirs Theological Quarterly 28:4 (1984): 26386, esp. 26970. 24. PG 91:1156C. 25. PG 91:1156D. 26. Cf. Doru Costache, Byzantine Insights into Genesis 13: St Andrew of Cretes Great Canon, Phronema 24 (2009): 3550, esp. 4043. 27. PG 91:1156D. Louths translation ignores the word (spouse, com panion); cf. Maximus the Confessor, 126. 28. Lit. he surrendered himself to sensation (), by the exclusive pre dis position toward it (PG 91:1156C).
GendeR as embRaced by God Moving further into the topic, it is noteworthy that alongside his rhetorical penchants Maximus did address aspects related to gender in a rigorous manner. Perhaps one of the most fascinating texts relevant to this theme, largely ignored, is Difculty 67,29 which takes as a pretext the symbolic signicance of the number twelve.30 A modern reader might be intrigued by such an approach, yet for those interested in researching what the saint really had to say, an analysis of like passages is unavoidable. The brief paragraph of interest begins by afrming that created things move () toward perfection, termed as motionless motion,31 following a trajectory framed by their original and nal terms (, ends or extremities).32 Three scriptural references bearing explicit anthropological connotations illustrate the parameters of this trajectory. The rst is from Gen 1.26 (LXX), which reads: God said, let us make humankind according to our image and according to likeness. The second is from Gen 1.27 (LXX): God made humankind; according to the image of God he made it, male and female he made them. The third is a paraphrase of Gal 3.28: for in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female. To make sense of this choice of scriptural texts (very likely inspired by their use in Gregory of Nyssa together with the latters opinion that humanity is marked by the image of God from beginning to end),33 one should
29. PG 91:1401AB. See the whole chapter in PG 91:1396B1405C. A translation into French is available in Saint Maxime le Confesseur, Ambigua, tr. Emmanuel Ponsoye (Paris and Suresnes: Les ditions de lAncre), 35663; the passage under analysis can be found at 360. 30. For insights into Maximian arithmology, see Hans Urs von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus the Confessor, tr. Brian E. Daley (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2003), 10914; Blowers, Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy, 21119; Despina D. Prassas, Introduction to St Maximus the Confessors Questions and Doubts (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010), 2425. 31. Lit. ever-moving stability ( ; PG 91:1401A). For variations on this phrase, see Difculty 17 (PG 91:1228BC). Cf. Paul M. Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire in Maximus the Confessor, Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011): 42551, esp. 44344; Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 269 70; I. P. Sheldon-Williams, St Maximus the Confessor, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1967, reprinted 1980), 492505, esp. 5015. 32. See PG 91:1401A. 33. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:185D). For Nyssens use of the Pauline text, see PG 44:181A. Cf. Verna E. F. Harrison, Gregory of Nyssa on Human Unity and Diversity, Studia Patristica 41 (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2006), 33344, esp. 33637. On Nyssen as a source for Maximus, see Adam G. Cooper,
look for the implicit framework within which they came to be associated as landmarks of a holistic anthropology. It appears that the Confessor considered these verses through the lens of a trilogy schematizing the general movement of the cosmos,34 possibly the one referring to the origin (), middle or current state (, lit. central position), and nality () of everything.35 The use of this concealed triadic pattern here is suggested in the observation of the saint of an imbalance or inequality (the term occurs twice in plural, as and )36 between the middle term (), as represented by Gen 1.27, and the terms situated at the ends, as signied by Gen 1.26 and Gal 3.28 respectively. Indeed, by juxtaposing the trilogy to the three verses, it becomes clear that Gen 1.26 refers to the pre-temporal divine intention concerning humanity (); Gen 1.27 to our historically concrete, gendered condition (); and Gal 3.28 to humankinds existential purpose, construed as perfection (). This understanding is conrmed by the Confessors note on the extremities as referring to an existential mode that transcends the categories of male and female, whereas the middle term explicitly focuses upon gender. In his own words, the extremities and the middles are unequal (), since the latter contain the [categories of] male and female whereas the former do not contain them ( , ).37
The Signicance of the Trilogy Before addressing this existential mode that transcends gender categories, we should consider more closely the signicance of the trilogy. One can
The Body in St Maximus the Confessor: Holy Flesh, Wholly Deied, The Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 20910; Verna E. F. Harrison, Gender, Generation, and Virginity in Cappadocian Theology, Journal of Theological Studies 47:1 (1996): 3868, esp. 6768; Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 73; Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1965), 13536, 15758, 16163. 34. Other trilogies are: being-wellbeing-eternal wellbeing, creation-movementstability, nature-choice-grace, and potentiality-action-rest, etc. All are juxtaposed e.g. in Difculty 65 (PG 91:1392A), but without any explicit anthropological spin. On the Maximian trilogies, see Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 16574; Renczes, Agir de Dieu et libert de lhomme, 18285; Sheldon-Williams, St Maximus the Confessor, 49397; Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 33237. 35. See e.g. Chapters on Theology and the Incarnate Economy of the Son of God, 1.2, 1.5, 1.7 (PG 90:1084A and 1085AB). The trilogy under consideration is alluded to in Difculty 7 (PG 91:1073C). 36. Cf. PG 91:1401AB. 37. PG 91:1401B.
surmise from the above that the saint construed the three verses as delineating three facets of humankinds journey, very likely applicable to any particular history as well. The goal of this teleological, or eschatologically conditioned, trajectory is the full actualization of our iconic potential (cf. Gen 1.26 LXX), the way it has been intended by God. True, when taken at face value this trilogy may be read as a sequence of three chronological stages,38 yet this is not the case. The origin is neither a particular moment in time nor a temporal beginning endowed with ontological density, which pertain to the concrete reality designated as middle. The origin is an active cause or a factor, i.e. Gods intention and action,39 which shapes the very existence of creation and nds expression in the constitutive principles () of created beings. In Difculty 67 and just a few paragraphs before our passage, the cause or origin is neither something nor sometime, it is someone, Jesus, the Lord and God of all ( ).40 This understanding of the origin does not allow for the Origenizing two-stage creation, a notion I shall soon address. Correlatively, human nality, i.e. the full actualization of our God-given potential, should not be seen as a chronological third stage either, although it is not deprived of eschatological connotations. Whilst the purpose is fully attained only beyond current circumstances, it cannot be reduced to the afterlife or the eschaton. Our nality points to a qualitative leap, an existential transformation to be achieved by human beings whilst still in the middle, as we shall see immediately. This aspect emerges in Maximuss conviction that the saints attain holiness and are deied by participation in Gods life in the here and now; thus they reveal the content of what it means to be in the image and likeness of God.41 Considering this evidence, we can infer that he construed nality in
38. Although he addressed the theme of the virtuous renewal in this life, Daley interpreted the origin and the end in the Nyssen as landmarks of a linear process, eschatologically nalized. Cf. Brian E. Daley, The Human Form Divine: Christs Risen Body and Ours According to Gregory of Nyssa, Studia Patristica 41 (cited above n.33): 30118, esp. 31315. I hope that my comments make clearer the patristic idea of a realized eschatology, where the end, or rather nality, cannot be reduced to the afterlife. 39. See e.g. Chapters on Theology, 1.8 (PG 90:1085C); Mystagogy, 1 (PG 91:665AB); Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). Cf. Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 263. 40. PG 91:1400BC. 41. Cf. Book of Difculties (Ambigua ad Thomam), prologue (PG 91:1032AB1033A; CCG 48:3.64.29). For an English version of the passage, see Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua to Thomas, Second Letter to Thomas, intro., tr. and notes by Joshua Lollar, Corpus Christianorum in Translation 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 4748. See also Difculty 3 (PG 91:1040CD; CCG 48:11.3912.49; ed. Lollar, 5556; cf. the editors comments at 1078). See also To Thalassius 59 (PG 90:608C609B; CCG 48:53.122
terms of what we call today a realized eschatology, as the foretaste of deication, an existential state pertaining to the age to come yet experienced within this very life. Together with its ascetic correspondents, the virtues, deication is what wraps up the whole process by unifying the origin and the purpose, as illustrated by To Thalassius 59. The passage describes deication as the undivided state () pertaining to the pure union of origin and nality ( ) in those that are being saved.42 Although the text does not mention the implications of this state for gender, it is not difcult to see its usefulness, since it mentions the extremities of the trilogy under consideration. This last point brings us back to the state undened by gender categories, which cannot be dissociated from the theme of the trilogy or its simplied version, namely, the twofold creation. The relevant passage from Difculty 67 does not openly address the ramications of our trilogy. Nevertheless, just as with the prologue of To Thalassius discussed below, one can presume that along the lines of this brief and cryptic text Maximus suggested a challenge for human beings, a challenge intrinsic to the triadic pattern and the teleological trajectory sketched by it. Given that our nality is to attain the state of neither male nor female, in all likelihood people are called to address gender in a spiritual manner, both as humankind and human beings. We shall see later that, without entailing a suppression of the sexual functions, as usually depicted by hagiography,43 this manner corresponds to an existential state no longer characterized by a passionate approach to, and the prioritization of, gender. The evidence of the saints who attain in the here and now this state of serenity, which displays divine features, led the Confessor to believe that the original intention of God concerning humankind was for it to adopt a Godlike lifestyle or the theandric existence,44 which
55.159). See also Difculty 10 (PG 91:1108A1205C); of immediate relevance here is the passage in Difculty 10.3 (PG 91:1113BC). 42. Cf. To Thalassius, 59 (PG 90:609AB; CCG 22:53.14755.148; see also 53.143 46). Further down (PG 90:613D; CCG 22:61.26869), the Confessor mentioned the bond between origin and nality, proposing that nality is anticipated by the origin and, likewise, that nality reveals the content of the origin. Thus, searching for his own nality (), man nds his origin (), which happens to naturally dwell within nality ( ). See the whole discussion of this topic in PG 90:613D616A or CCG 22:61.25563.292. 43. Cf. Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex, 13839, 143. 44. A clear afrmation of both humankinds origin and nality as consisting in divinehumanity, and as realised in Christ is in To Thalassius 60 (PG 90:621ABC; CCG 22:75.3377.63).
transcends the boundaries of our gendered nature.45 Inaugurated by Christ, and again the matter is not explicitly worded, the theandric state has to be reiterated on a personal level through the baptismal renewal and the virtuous life. This is entailed by the use of Gal 3.28, which represents the canonical exegesis of baptism in the Byzantine rite. Before moving any further with the analysis of Difculty 67, we should note once again that the Confessors idea of a dispassionate and deied life as constituting human nality draws on the Nyssens ruminations on the genderless character of the image of God in us, and the related topics.46 This nexus is relevant to our analysis and deserves further attention.
Insights from Nyssens Anthropology Scholars are right when they trace back to St. Gregory of Nyssa the source of the Maximian musings, and it would be a truism to demonstrate here this afliation. In establishing this link, however, the consensus projects upon the Confessor a mistake related to Nyssens notion of gender and the image of God in us. More specically, there are scholars who ascribe to Gregory the mythological, Origenizing notion of a two-stage creation of humankind, rst immaterial and asexual, and later gender-marked.47 This interpretation is based on the reading of On the Making of Man 16 in terms of a chronologically sequential creation. When considering the last lines of the chaptera summary of the whole discussionone discovers however that far from suggesting the addition of gender to a supposedly sexless existence, the text introduces an explanation48 meant to prepare the discussion of human multiplication irrespective of the fall. Rather than depicting a chronological two-stage creation of humankind, chapter 16 ponders the twofold structure () of the human being,49
45. Cf. Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 26364. 46. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:177D185D). Cf. John Behr, The Rational Animal: A Rereading of Gregory of Nyssas De Hominis Opicio, Journal of Early Christian Studies 7:2 (1999): 21947; Sarah Coakley, The Eschatological Body: Gender, Transformation, and God, Modern Theology 16:1 (2000): 6173, esp. 6770; Harrison, Gender, Generation, and Virginity, 3868; Valerie A. Karras, Sex/Gender in Gregory of Nyssas Eschatology: Irrelevant or Non-Existent, Studia Patristica 41 (quoted above n.33): 36368. 47. On the proponents and opponents of this misunderstanding, see Morwenna Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, Ancient and (Post)modern (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 16772, 17376, 17879. Cf. Giulio Maspero, Anthropology, The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, ed. Luca Francisco Mateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero, revised and expanded English edition, tr. by Seth Cherney (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 3747, esp. 4344; Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 15758, 16163, 39899. 48. Cf. On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:185D). 49. Cf. On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:181AB).
which consists of its psychosomatic makeup and the image of God in us. Verna Harrison demonstrated this understanding in a peremptory way.50 The Nyssen took this double structure to be the very constitution of the human being, which as a midpoint between divine and animal is a mixed being.51 Human complexity represents in fact the main theme of Gregorys treatise, as suggested by its original title52 (to my knowledge an aspect not observed by recent scholars). Within this context, and in short, without ever implying that the human being can be considered other than in the esh, the Nyssen nevertheless showed that the divinely shaped aspect of our naturethe image of God in uscannot be confused with the gendered, biological side.53 Regarding the permanence of the two sides pertaining to human nature, Sarah Coakley observed: Gregorys gender theory... does not claim to obliterate the binaries that remain culturally normative, but seeks ... to nd a transformative way through them.54 These nuances are very relevant to our topic. Contrary to what some scholars committed to the two-stage theory believe,55 the Confessor likewise expressed no interest in such a mythologizing explanation, which would betray a dependence on Origens concept of the initially disembodied human nature, disavowed by both fathers.56 I shall return to this aspect. What matters here is that the two-stage theory runs parallel to their thinking. They never mistook Gods intention ()
50. Cf. Verna E. F. Harrison, Male and Female in Cappadocian Theology, Journal of Theological Studies 41:2 (1990): 44171, esp. 46571. 51. Cf. On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:181BC). Ludlow, Gregory of Nyssa, 17980, did not mention this important passage. On human complexity, see Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith: Union, Knowledge, and Divine Presence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 5960, 182 etc.; J. Warren Smith, The Body of Paradise and the Body of the Resurrection: Gender and the Angelic Life in Gregory of Nyssas De hominis opicio, Harvard Theological Review 92:2 (2006): 20728, esp. 20913. 52. , On the Structure of the Human Being; the translation of the title as On the Making of Man is misleading, since is not making as creation but as makeup. 53. Cf. On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:185A). 54. Cf. Coakley, The Eschatological Body, 67. 55. See Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 73. For more careful approaches, see Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 20911; Karras, Sex/Gender in Gregory of Nyssas Eschatology, 365. Against this understanding, see Thunberg, Micro cosm and Mediator, 16163. 56. Cf. John Boojamra, Original Sin according to St Maximus the Confessor, St. Vladimirs Theological Quarterly 20 (1976): 1930, esp. 1920; Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 17879; Aidan Nichols, Byzantine Gospel: Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 15859. For a similar stance in the Nyssen, see Daley, The Human Form Divine, 30710.
concerning humankind for a rst chronological phase in the creation of a bodiless and/or asexual humanity. The same goes for their understanding of our nality in terms of a metaphorically genderless or virtuous state. Indeed, we shall see immediately that they stood against any temptation to accredit the eschatological humankind as literally divested of gender.
Virtue as the State above Gender Returning to the Confessors approach to the state above gender as implied by the trilogy and illustrated by Gal 3.28, Difculty 67, even without directly disclosing it, points to a simple solution that transpires when the passage is read in the broader context of the Book of Difculties. For instance, in Difculty 7 we nd an acknowledgment of Christ as the paragon of virtue: the essence () of all virtues is our Lord Jesus Christ.57 As the essence of all virtues, Jesus embodies a standard relevant to all humans. Considered together with Difculty 67, which speaks of our transformation in Christ in the indirect means of the Pauline verse, the assertion leads to the conclusion that the state above genderin Jesus Christ there is neither male nor femalecorresponds to the virtuous lifestyle. This solution, likewise inspired by the Nyssen,58 is better articulated elsewhere in the Book of Difculties.59 With or without this aspect being clearly stated, it ensues that the saint did not indulge any mythologizing eccentricities like a literally genderless humankind. This is an aspect of which one can make more sense in light of the Maximian distinction between the existential mode ( ) and nature (). Whereas nature is conditioned by its reason to be ( ) and preserved invariable, the existential mode depends on human free choice. Just a few pages before our text, Difculty 65 makes use of the trilogy being-wellbeing-eternal wellbeing, where nature corresponds to being and the virtuous lifestyle, as an existential mode, to wellbeing, the outcome of a right choice.60 By applying this distinction to our topic it occurs that the state above gender does not signify our ontological makeup, our nature; rather, it refers to the virtuous lifestyle, an existential mode designed as the destination of humankind and freely opted by the saints. Consequently, and given the invariability of nature, this existential mode affects the function of gender without eradicating it.
57. Cf. Difculty 7 (PG 91:1081D). 58. Cf. Daley, The Human Form Divine, 311; Harrison, Gender, Generation, and Virginity, 4562. 59. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). 60. Difculty 65 (PG 91:1392A). Cf. Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 265.
Before moving any further, we should add that Maximuss solution referring to virtue must have drawn also on the fact that the Church never differentiated between masculine and feminine worthiness. Saints of both genders, celibate as well as married, attain the same states of perfection, virtue (like the state of deication discussed above) acting like a unifying principle and as their common denominator.61 Given his familiarity with the experience of holiness, the Confessor undoubtedly bore such a thought in mind, an insight that matches the general Byzantine conviction that men and women are spiritually equal.62 This conviction was not changed by the fact that, in time, the number of acknowledged female Byzantine saints diminished in contrast with the early Christian centuries.63 One aspect remains obscure in the analyzed text from Difculty 67, namely, the omission of a straightforward afrmation of Christ as relevant to all human beings. Although the answer might be implied in Maximuss paraphrase of Gal 3.28, and the earlier statement concerning Jesus as the cause ( ) and restorer () of all,64 it is not my intention to elucidate this issue here. Sufce it to say that this aspect is treated elsewhere in the Book of Difculties,65 in a chapter just as signicant for our purposes as this one. This other passage, from Difculty 41, contains the already familiar paraphrase of the Pauline verse and approaches the topic in a similar manner. Since the two texts complement each other, as we shall soon see, one can ascertain that the conclusion regarding Christs universal relevance stands for both. Given the broader textual evidence,66 we can surmise that for our saint what Christ accomplished in his paradigmatic life is both the goal ascribed to humankind, irrespective of gender, and the manner in which this goal can be attained by all, i.e. the virtuous lifestyle. Far from maintaining an aversion toward gender, the Confessor
61. Difculty 67 (PG 91:1397C) presents the four cardinal virtues as unied into the encompassing and most general virtue ( ). See also Maximuss Letter 2: On Love (PG 91:393C396C; ed. Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 86). Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 30912. 62. Cf. Connor, Women of Byzantium, 7893; Garland, Editors Introduction, xiii; Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex, 13132; Alice-Mary Talbot, The Devotional Life of Laywomen, in Byzantine Christianity, A Peoples History of Christianity, ed. Derek Krueger (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), 3:20120, esp. 202. 63. For a headcount of saintly women, see Talbot, General Introduction, xxi; the information is borrowed by Connor, Women of Byzantium, 8586. 64. PG 91:1400BC. 65. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1309AB and 1309D1312A). 66. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1308CD and 1309CD). See also Difculty 42 (PG 91:1321AB); To Thalassius, 22 (PG 90:317B320A).
remained a faithful disciple of the Pauline tradition (as shown by his many references to Gal 3.28)67 and presented the human journey as fullled in the Christianmetaphorically genderlessidentity. He articulated this identity as a virtuous, existentially transformative lifestyle, not a literal escape from our gendered condition. Two more points should be made on the state between the extremities, namely, the gender division.
Further Notes on Gender First, considering the Confessors notion of difference, Damien Casey afrmed that the saint borrowed an aversion toward multiplicity from neoplatonism, and could not maintain an appreciation for gender division.68 I do not intend to discuss here aspects of the neoplatonic tradition. Caseys assessment of the Maximian concept of diversity however nds support neither in the passages previously analyzed nor in contemporary scholarship.69 Maximus never envisaged an ontological obliteration of differences in the process of spiritual transformation, not even eschatologically, as conrmed by Paul Blowers.70 The state above gender should not be confused therefore with the tertium genus of either androgyny or eunuchism. In fact, the relevant paragraph from Difculty 67 concludes by showing that both the extremities and the middles are grasped by the creative and embracing divine energy ( ).71 This statement is crucial. Fully embraced by God, our gendered
67. The observation belongs to Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 209. For similar patristic interpretations of the verse, see Harrison, Gregory of Nyssa on Human Unity and Diversity, 336; Kari Kloos, In Christ There is Neither Male nor Female: Patristic Interpretation of Galatians 3:28, Studia Patristica 39 (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2006), 23944. 68. Cf. Damien Casey, Maximus and Irigaray: Metaphysics and Difference, Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, vol. 4: Liturgy and Life, ed. Wendy Mayer, Pauline Allen, and Lawrence Cross (Sydney: St Pauls Publications, 2006), 18998, esp. 19498. 69. Scholars refer to the Chalcedonian logic of unions and distinctions, which permitted a balanced synthesis of unity and diversity. Cf. von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 5680; Bogdan G. Bucur, Foreordained from All Eternity: The Mystery of the Incarnation According to Some Early Christian and Byzantine Writers, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 62 (2008): 199215, esp. 200201, 2035; Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 913; Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 2223, 4951; Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 137. On the Nyssens concept of unity and multiplicity, see Harrison, Gregory of Nyssa on Human Unity and Diversity, 33344, esp. 33941. 70. Paul M. Blowers, Bodily Inequality, Material Chaos, and the Ethics of Equalization in Maximus the Confessor, Studia Patristica 42 (Leuven and Paris: Peeters, 2006): 5156, esp. 5456. 71. PG 91:1401B. Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man 16 (PG 44:185D).
condition, together with the differences and inequalities pertaining to it, do not constitute obstacles for attaining the Godlike state. Second, even though Hans Urs von Balthasar reached a positive understanding of Maximuss attitude toward gender and discovered further support for it in the Ambigua,72 he suspected a reticence behind the saints articulation of the sexual synthesis (as he termed the latters approach and which he generally viewed as central to Maximian thinking).73 According to von Balthasar, gender and sexuality were for the Confessor overloaded by the tragedy and the despairing dialectic of original sin,74 thereby precluding them from any constructive role in the spiritual journey. There is certainly some truth in this assessment and indeed Maximus could not have spoken of a nal and fullling meaning of sexuality.75 Nevertheless, I agree with Adam Cooper76 that this attitude originated neither in a monastic embarrassment nor in some metaphysical propensities. There is no obsession with the ancestral sin in Maximus either, since he contemplated reality from the vantage point of Christs mystery.77 From where, then, did his reluctance originate? Building on Pauls mystical anthropology, the Confessor was convinced that ultimately gender and the sexual aspects associated with itnature, as it werecould not dene the identity and experience of people who have been spiritually transformed. Panayotis Christou, from whose words I derived the phrase above gender, rightly observed that Maximus construed the virtuous state as a good above nature and a surpassing of nature.78 This understanding corresponds to the famously enigmatical saying of a fourth-century hermit, Amma Sarra, according to my nature I am a woman, but not according to my thoughts,79 which hints to the genderless character of holiness. The following analysis will further substantiate these observations.
72. Cf. von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 199200. 73. See e.g. Cosmic Liturgy, 199. 74. Cf. Cosmic Liturgy, 204. Schnborn (Plaisir et douleur dans lanalyse de S.Maxime, 278) tacitly rectied this understanding by mentioning the possibility of (sexual) pleasure to be transgured. 75. Cf. Cosmic Liturgy, 204. For similar observations regarding the Nyssens anthropology, see Karras, Sex/Gender in Gregory of Nyssas Eschatology, 366. 76. Cf. Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 212. 77. Cf. von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 66. 78. Cf. Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 268, 27071. 79. Cf. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, tr. with a foreword by Benedicta Ward (Kalamazoo, MI and Oxford: Cistercian Publications and A. R. Mowbray, 1975), Amma Sarra 4 (at 230). This is a far more appropriate description of the genderless character of virtue than the later hagiographical notion of the manly spirit of holy women; cf. Kazhdan, A History of Byzantine Literature
Living above the gendeR division The Confessor addressed the theme of the analyzed passage from Difculty 67 already, and less cryptically, in Difculty 41,80 in a chapter that can be considered a narrative of everything characterized by soteriological overtones.81 The relevant paragraph, explicitly dealing with gender, refers to the fth polarity/division and respectively to the rst unication/synthesis within the whole of reality. To understand the signicance of this discussion, a brief description of the narrative is in order. For Maximus, reality is not homogenous but rather features ve dynamic polarities that encompass all the strands of being.82 The polarities unfold as follows: the rst consists in the ultimate ontological rift between uncreated and created; the second refers to the heterogeneity of the created domain, which includes the intelligible/unseen and the sensible/visible; the third is within the visible realm, and refers to the spheres of the sky and the earth; the fourth distinguishes on earth the inhabited land, or civilization, and paradise, or the spiritual experience; and the fth is the anthropological, gender-marked division. A range of tensions is embedded in the ve divisions, the last of which summarizes microcosmically the architecture of,
(8501000), 308. Saras saying can serve as an indirect refutation of a statement by Talbot, General Introduction, xii, that in the case of Mary the Egyptian the spiritual journey depicted the female body virtually sexless. Marys own conscience as a woman denies Talbots assertion; see e.g. Life of St Mary of Egypt (cited above n.19) 12 (ed. Kouli, 77). 80. PG 91:1304D1313B. 81. Cf. Doru Costache, Seeking Out the Antecedents of the Maximian Theory of Everything: St Gregory the Theologians Oration 38, Phronema 26:2 (2011): 2745. 82. Cf. PG 91:1304D1305B. Beginning with von Balthasars Cosmic Liturgy, which in its entirety can be seen as a complex exploration of this passage and its implications, scholars have manifested much interest in this worldview throughout the twentieth century. See e.g. Thunbergs Microcosm and Mediator, 373427. Thunbergs analysis became in turn an object of scholarly interest. See e.g. Nichols, Byzantine Gospel, 16567; Ioan I. Ica, Jr., Mystagogia Trinitatis: Probleme ale teologiei trinitare patristice s*i moderne cu referire speciala la triadologia Sfntului Maxim Ma rturisitorul (Sibiu, Romania: Deisis, 1998), 195200. For succinct renditions of the Maximian theory, see Christous Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 267, and Vladimir Losskys The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2002), 10810. For a more recent analysis, see Bernardo De Angelis, Natura, persona, libert: Lantropologia di Massimo il Confessore (Rome: Armando Editore, 2002), 17480. See also Costache, Seeking Out the Antecedents of the Maximian Theory of Everything, 2830; Costache, The Unifying Ladder of St Maximus the Confessor: Going Upwards with Everything You Are, Science and Orthodoxy: A Necessary Dialogue, ed. Basarab Nicolescu and Magda Stavinschi (Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2006), 13544, esp. 13643.
and the strains pertaining to, this complex reality. In the narrative, the polarities represent as many existential challenges addressed to the human person, which appears as the ecosystemic agent called to manage the various levels of reality by making good use of them, in continuity with the divine plan, thus bringing them to coherence. According to von Balthasar: In . . . a sexually divided humanity, the differentiation and multiplicity of the world, which has progressed to an extreme degree, takes its rst turn toward unity.83 Indeed, the Logos assigned to humankind the providential-like task of overcoming all divisions84 by activating the divine principles that pervade everything. To accomplish this task humankind had to adopt a theocentric lifestyle (the whole unifying journey is actually represented as an ascent to God, ),85 which corresponds to the or principle of things. This lifestyle, of which I have spoken more in the previous section, is the virtuous one, and plays the role of a catalyst for the grand unication of reality. The fact that virtue is explicitly mentioned twice in our passage should not be taken therefore as incidental. The text presents the divine virtue ( ) as an existential mode above gender for both males and females, and uses the phrase in what concerns virtue () to designate the angelic-like status of those who undertake the spiritual, unifying ascent.86 Furthermore, virtue emerges through the expression leading a holy life or leading a life betting the saints ( ), where it signies a presupposition of the unication of paradise and the inhabited world.87 The strong emphasis on the role of virtue, as a lifestyle betting the saints, in the process of unication illuminates
83. Von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 199. It is unfortunate that in his very insightful study of the Confessors idea of unication, Stanjevskiy (Une anthropologie la base dune pense religieuse, 40928) made only tangential references to gender and interhuman relations. Such an incidental reference occurs at 416. Stanjevskiy returned to the topic at 42425, maintaining that the gender division played a secondary role in Maximus. Consequently, he simply jumped to the next four syntheses. The topic of the soul and body, taken as central by the article in question, is mentioned only in passing by the Maximian text considered here (cf. PG 91:1309C and 1312A), as a cosmological metaphor for the union of the visible and invisible, and not as a theme of the ve syntheses. 84. Cf. Christou, Maximos Confessor on the Innity of Man, 262; Juan-Miguel Garrigues, Le dessein dadoption du Crateur dans son rapport au Fils daprs S.Maxime le Confesseur, in Maximus Confessor (quoted above n.4), 17392, esp. 185; Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 10512. 85. Cf. PG 91:1305B. 86. Cf. PG 91:1305CD. 87. Cf. PG 91:1305D.
the message of the previously analyzed passage from Difculty 67, and conrms the experience of holiness as the underlying factor of the entire Maximian spiritual anthropology. The process of unication is supposed to unfold in the reverse order of the ve divisions, as follows:88 rst, the pacication of humankind by virtuously overshadowing the gender division; second, the earth synthesis of the inhabited land and paradise, effected by a holy life; third, the bridge between earth and sky, again by a virtuous lifestyle similar to the angels; fourth, the unication of the visible and invisible aspects of created reality, by reaching the same knowledge as the angels; and fth, the perfect communion of the created and the uncreated, achieved in love. I cannot discuss here in detail more than the rst89 anthropological synthesis. Given humankinds centrality within the universe, the unifying journey through the various levels of reality begins with the most immediate, the split between male and female ( and ;90 the terms are taken from Gen 1.27 LXX). Before we proceed any further with the analysis, it is useful to restate that for St. Maximus the issue in Christian anthropology did not consist in the gender division as such, since the gendered humanity is embraced by God. In line with the argument of Difculty 67, discussed above, Difculty 41 acknowledges a gendered humanity that exists in such a waywithin the connes of the middle as it werefrom its beginnings as a species. Since the triadic pattern underlying Difculty 67 does not reappear in this case the point is even stronger, humankind being taken in this context simply as gendered with no other qualication. This observation stands although sometimes the saint maintained that Gods original plan concerning our birth did not refer either to sexuality or the pleasure associated with it.91 It is possible that in such instances the birth of which he was thinking was the spiritual regeneration (like in John 1.1213). What is of interest is that this was not his overall teaching on the matter, as we shall see below.
88. Cf. PG 91:1305B1308C. 89. For an interpretation of the second synthesis with reference to the rst one, see Costache, The Unifying Ladder of St Maximus the Confessor, 14043. 90. Cf. PG 91:1305B. Cf. De Angelis, Natura, persona, libert, 17475. 91. See Various Questions and Selections from Various Passages that are Perplexing, Question 1.3, in St Maximus the Confessors Questions and Doubts (quoted above n.30), 14142. Cf. CCG 10:138.3139.13.
Sexuality and Pleasure Contrary to the opinion of Jean-Claude Larchet,92 sexual intercourse and the related pleasure could not be seen as problems. Maximus observed in the prologue of To Thalassius that the ancestors were not forever prohibited from tasting the fruit of pleasure, and Thunberg is right when identifying the pleasure referred to hereand elsewhere in the Maximian corpusas primarily the sexual one.93 The relevant passage94 maintains that the ancestors were advised to patiently postpone the experience of pleasure until they had reached equanimity, by the practice of virtue and participation in divine grace ( ), i.e. a state of serenity and stability ( ). Only by attaining such a state could they have tasted the fruit of pleasure with spiritual maturityor divinelyand not merely in a human fashion ( ), therefore avoiding an addiction that makes one oblivious to the spiritual journey. One could infer that the saint did not consider either pleasure in general or sexual pleasure in particular as evil, and that he did not see physical pleasure as altogether absent from the paradisal experience and the spiritual life. Christoph Schnborn reached similar conclusions in his analysis of the prologue.95 Beyond the strangeness of the Confessors hypothesis of a paradisal reproduction, referred to by various scholars,96 a metaphor by which he seems to have implied the dispassionate disposition of saintly married couples (see the next section), it emerges that he nurtured the utmost respect for the God-given way of human love and multiplication. A few pages after the text considered here, Difculty 42 addresses the topic within an explicit defense of the sanctity of marriage: If marriage is evil ( ), certainly the law of natural generation ( ) is also [evil]. And if the law of natural generation is
92. Cf. Jean-Claude Larchet, Ancestral guilt according to St Maximus the Confessor: A bridge between Eastern and Western conceptions, Sobornost 20:1 (1998): 2648, esp. 28, 38. For a similar yet more prudent reiteration of this idea, see Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 21315. 93. Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 377. 94. PG 90:257D (CCG 7:37.33849). Cf. Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 18385. The passage echoes Gregory the Theologians Oration 38.12; cf. Brian E. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 12223. 95. Cf. Schnborn, Plaisir et douleur dans lanalyse de S. Maxime, 27678, 28183. See also Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 15759, 37677. 96. Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 381; Larchet, Ancestral guilt, 27; Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 20812. For a refutation of the mythologising interpretation of the Nyssens idea of an angelic-like mode of reproduction, see Behr, The Rational Animal, 23945.
evil, the one that made nature ( . . . ) and gave it its law of generation is [evil] as well.97 Given the perception of Maximus as exhibiting reticence towards gender, sexuality, and pleasure, expressed e.g. by von Balthasar as we have seen above, the prospect of his positive approach to such aspects seems surprising and one can expect scholars to want to circumvent them. For instance, exploring an early Maximian work (Chapters on Love, 2.17 and 2.33), Blowers observed: Maximuss treatment of sexuality and marriage ... does not venture signicantly beyond the ascetical tradition in which he stooda tradition that sought to sublimate sexual passion in the conjugal relationship.98 Likewise, Thunberg noted how although the faculties of anger and desire, wholly transgured, are preserved intact in those spiritually renewed, sexual intercourse will not remain.99 Thunberg did not specify his ambiguous will not remain, which may be taken as referring either to current circumstances or an eschatological state, or both. Reading his statement in context however, it seems that he was hinting to a spiritual state reached in this life, an interpretation which otherwise ts well both with the saints interest in the monastic experience and the examples of unconsummated marriages praised by Byzantine hagiographers.100 Larchets, Blowerss and Thunbergs precautions notwithstanding, I propose that the saint did not exclude marriage, sexuality, and pleasure in principlenot even when, following the Nyssen, he suggested an angeliclike, supernatural mode of procreation in paradise. This matter cannot be properly discussed without being aware that for him the paradise narrative signied more than the experience of one given couple. The Confessor and the Byzantines saw the scriptural account as a parable meant to decipher the readers own circumstances, referring to the spiritual life in general and not to a topological detail pertaining to the past or the future.101
97. PG 91:1340B. It seems that the Nyssen held in a similar high esteem the human capacity of reproduction. Cf. Warren Smith, The Body of Paradise and the Body of the Resurrection, 21415. 98. Cf. Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire, 439. 99. Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 405; cf. 38081. Similarly, but without reference to gender, cf. Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 57377, 58993. 100. Cf. Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex, 133; Kazhdan, A History of Byzantine Literature (8501000), 21920. 101. Cf. Costache, The Unifying Ladder of St Maximus the Confessor, 139, 141. For parallels in Byzantine hymnography, see Costache, Byzantine Insights into Genesis 13, 3843, and Reading the Scriptures with Byzantine Eyes: The Hermeneutical Signicance of St Andrew of Cretes Great Canon, Phronema 23 (2008): 5166, esp. 5863.
For example, returning to his rendition of Gen 3 in Difculty 10.28, to which I referred above, he concluded by pointing out that what happened to the ancestors corresponds to our experience with life and death.102 In its Byzantine reading therefore, the paradise narrative fullls a broader hermeneutical function and should not be seen exclusively as the story of Adam and Eve, and their extraordinary setting. It follows that the paradisal metaphors veiling the Maximian ruminations on gender cannot be taken literally as though the spiritual life excludes sexuality and pleasure. The reader may remember that the prologue of To Thalassius suggests the possibility of a serene experience, characterized by an equanimity that precludes all selsh misuse and addictions. To his credit, Thunberg touched upon these aspects in his comments on Difculty 48 (PG 91:1364BD),103 aptly pointing out the Maximian appreciation for procreation. For some reason however, he did not see the relevance of his discovery for the topic of gender, sexuality, and pleasure.
A Virtuous and Compassionate Life, above Gender The above remarks facilitate a proper understanding of the gender synthesis. We have seen that problematic for the Confessor was not our gendered constitution; instead, it was the ignorance of people concerning the true signicance of gender within Gods intention for humanity, and the consequent abuse of it. Taking on the Nyssens musings on gender before and after the fall,104 Maximus believed that by a misinterpretation that leads to the passionate misuse of their potential,105 gender, sexuality, and pleasure become chaotic and destructive.106 Together with losing their signicance, they detract the human person from its quest for a spiritual life and open the endless spiral of selsh love ().107 Selsh love and its associated aspects amount to a failure of the human being on a personal
102. Cf. Difculty 10.28 (PG 91:1156C1157A). 103. Cf. Microcosm and Mediator, 405; cf. also 37879. 104. The observation belongs to Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1978), 7677. 105. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1308C and 1309A). 106. Cf. Blowers, Bodily Inequality, 54; Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire, 433. 107. For the selsh love, see the classical reference, Irne Hausherr, S.J., Philautie: De la tendresse pour soi la charit selon Saint Maxime le Confesseur, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 137 (Rome: Ponticium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1952), esp. 6083. Cf. von Balthasar, Cosmic Liturgy, 196; Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire, 435; Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 194; Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 3840.
level, a failure accompanied by existential, ontological, and cosmological repercussions. St. Maximus believed that by walking the sinful path people do not just undermine their individual existence; they actually become noxious to the human race, the earthly ecosystem and the universe. This message is clearly conveyed by the text under consideration.
After being created, the human being did not move as would have been natural towards the unmoved one, its proper origin (and I mean God). Instead, it freely and mindlessly moved against nature and towards the things beneath it, over which it has been ordered by God to govern. Thus, by abusing () the natural power bestowed upon it from the making, it pushed towards separation () the things that were united rather than bringing to union () the differentiated ones . . .108
The natural processes of separation, decay, and death, inherent to all beings that have a beginning and an end, are further catalyzed by human failures; our wrong choices affect the wellbeing of the creation, although not its very nature. In this context, living virtuously and reaching serenity109 are the antidote for the divisions intensied by selsh propensities and addictions. Gender and all its related aspects should therefore be redeemed in each ones life by a contemplative reinterpretation and correct usage, in harmony with the divine intention concerning humankind110 and consequent to the salvic work of Christ.111 Christs earthly life,112 the paradoxical condition of the Virgin-Mother,113 and in various degrees the achievements of the saints,114 supremely illustrate this restorative trend.
108. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1308C; the version of Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 156, is problematic). See also To Thalassius, prologue: thus the one nature [of humankind] came to be cut into inordinate fragments and those of the same nature eat each other like crawling beasts (PG 90:256B; CCG 7:33.26972). Cf. Difculty 10.28 (PG 91:1156C1157A); Difculty 45 (PG 91:1353C); To Thalassius, prologue (PG 90:257; CCG 7:33.26592). Cf. Hausherr, S.J., Philautie, 8890; Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 19697, 199201. 109. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). Lit. through the most dispassionate reference to the divine virtue. Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 4023. 110. Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 38081; Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 213. 111. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1308D1309A, 1309D1312A). Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 379. 112. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1308D1312B). The passage expounds on a topic already addressed in Difculty 7 (PG 91:1081D). Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 37778. 113. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1313C). 114. Cf. Difculty 10.51 (PG 91:1204D1205A). See also To Thalassius 64 (PG 90:716CD; CCG 22:223.57783). Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire, 44041, adds to this list the angelic ranks.
Virtue brings one to personal renewal and fulllment, and through the regeneration of the human being it contributes to the pacication of all the levels of reality, including gender interactions, as shown by the references to virtue and a holy life in the passage of interest. We have seen earlier that this renovation is possible given that virtue both reveals and actualizes the fundamental denition or the natural principle ( ) of humankind, which corresponds to the most general of creation.115 By tapping into this principle, virtue unies the various aspects of reality. What matters is the fact that the virtuous experience leads to a new vision of reality, as a contemplative aspect,116 and a behavioral shift, as a practical aspect. In the case of gender, this approach consists in prioritizing the primary principle ( ) of our creation,117 which makes possible the contemplation of the particular categories of male and female through the general category of humankind. Only thus can one transcend the narrow and divisive character of the gender feature ( ),118 so that any person appears as simply a human being ( ).119 This vision precludes both tensions and discriminations on account of the gender division. That said, the transgured relationships, beyond violence, addictions, and selsh urges,120 are not to be understood as an obliteration of our gender particularities. This aspect is emphasized further down in the chapter. Upon exploring the signicance of Christs mediating ministry,121 Maximus presented the gender features ( )122 as overshadowed by the fact of people being seen as simply human beings ( ), beyond their makeup as men and women ( ). This looks like a mere repetition of the above. Nevertheless, the passage replaces the singular (simply a human being) of the previous paragraph by the plural (people). This important difference shows that our personal uniqueness and gender
115. Cf. Mystagogy, 7 (PG 91:684D685C). 116. Cf. Nicholas Madden, (Diadochus-Maximus), Studia Patristica 23 (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 5360, esp. 5760. 117. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). 118. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). Lit. regarding the female and male feature. 119. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). Lit. solely a human being. Again without reference to gender, see Larchet, La divinisation de lhomme, 58289. 120. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1305C). For the theme of inter-personal relationships, see Michael Hardin, Mimesis and Dominion: The Dynamics of Violence and the Imitation of Christ in Maximus Confessor, St. Vladimirs Theological Quarterly 36:4 (1992): 37385. 121. Cf. Difculty 41 (PG 91:1309D1312A). 122. Lit. regarding the differences between male and female.
remain unhindered by the spiritual life, even though their function from this point onwards changes. In an earlier writing, the Confessor wrapped this teaching up whilst discussing the benets of a virtuous and dispassionate life for the social exercise in general.
The one who is perfect in love ( ) and has advanced to the limit of dispassion () knows no difference . . . between male and female. But having risen above the tyranny of the passions ( ) and looking to the one nature of people ( ), regards all equally and is equally disposed toward all.123
We should not expect more insights from St. Maximus into the nature of the spiritual transformation, beyond these relational aspects. For him, altruistic love or compassion is impossible without undertaking ascetic purication or walking the virtuous paththis pure love representing the positive side of the otherwise negative aspect of asceticism.124 The compassion resulting from the ascetic effort, mentioned from the beginning of this article, should be seen as the ultimate goal of the Maximian elaborations on the existential mode above gender or above nature, and as the driving force behind the entire process of unication. Although the immediate purpose of these musings might have been to assist both male and female ascetics in their spiritual struggles, they can be generalized for the married life as well, as we shall see below. The consistency of the analyzed passages from Difculty 41, Chapters on Love 2.30, and Difculty 67, all alluding to Gal 3.28, is inescapable. All these texts refer to the divine intention regarding humankind as a challenge to attain a Godlike existential stateabove genderwithout our humanity, and bodily life, being annulled. One can safely infer that alongside the paradisal metaphors used by Maximus to depict perfection, there can be discerned within his thinking a realistic appraisal of human existence. I turn now to another passage from the Book of Difculties, which specically addresses married life.
123. Chapters On Love, 2.30 (PG 90:993B). Cf. Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, 38081. Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire, 436, refers to Chapters on Love, 1.2426. Kazhdan, Byzantine Hagiography and Sex, 135, gives examples of people enabled by their own holiness to overcome sexual temptations. 124. Cf. Blowers, The Dialectics and Therapeutics of Desire, 437; Hausherr, Philautie, 12832; Louth, Maximus the Confessor, 4041.
Two ways towaRds the one goal I shall briey refer here to another forgotten text, the passage in Difculty 10.31a.5125 that depicts Moses and Elijah as illustrating the two ways of the spiritual life, namely, marriage and celibacy. This depiction crowns everything that has been discussed so far. Difculty 10 is the longest chapter in the entire Maximian corpus, treating a large amount of topics and scriptural illustrations on the path of perfection, which makes difcult any attempt to summarize it in just a few words. Within the economy of the chapter, prominence is ascribed to Christs transguration on Tabor,126 the context of interest showing Maximuss effort to explore the implications of this event. Our passage presents Moses and Elijah side by side with Christ on the mountain, and begins with the following general comment: by revealing their presence the Lord initiated the apostles into the mysteries of marriage and celibacy ( ). Hence, the two prophets symbolically represent the potential of both marriage and celibacy, or monasticism, as spiritual pathways, since Moses was not prevented by marriage ( ) from becoming a lover of the divine glory and Elijah remained completely pure from any marital relationship ( ). Very signicant is the concluding note that through the two prophets Christ mystically declared both ways, i.e. marriage and celibacy, as valid paths leading to him. Nevertheless, this is true only for those whose lives are governed by reason () and unfold according to divine laws (), by virtuous living that is. Virtue features again implicitly as a logical (from ) means to achieve a perfect life. Approached reverently, in accordance with the divine wisdom and intention, both existential states, i.e. marriage and celibacy, are conducive towards participation and fulllment in Christ. Far from favoring either of the two ways, the saint believed in the possibility of walking the spiritual path irrespective of gender and social circumstances. What matters here is that, irreducible to the unconsummated marriages gloried by Byzantine hagiographers, the spiritual experience of holy couples (whose famous illustration, after the Confessors time, was the ninth century vita of Philaretos of Amnia)127 is as valid as that of the most secluded hermits. Furthermore, although the text does not explicitly refer to it, given all the above we can surmise that the experience of these
125. Cf. PG 91:1161D. 126. Cf. PG 91:1125D1137C, 1160C1169B. 127. Cf. Kazhdan et al., A History of Byzantine Literature (650850), 28890.
holy couples does not entail a suppression of the aspects pertaining to the gendered condition of their members.128 What makes marriage sacred is not its being deprived of pleasure; it is the prioritization of the spiritual pursuits, like in the example of Moses. This conclusion may clarify the signicance of using the term or spouse in Difculty 10.28, discussed earlier: Adam and Eve were supposed to become a holy couple yet failed by drowning in the abyss of pleasure. There is nothing new about celibacy and the monastic life in this very brief passage. Nevertheless, the endorsement of marriage as a spiritual pathway by a monk is once again surprising, although I hope that the previous sections attenuated the readers astonishment. And in fact, the Confessors attitude builds upon a venerable tradition of the positive assessment of marriage as a spiritual way of life,129 which can be traced back to Christ and the Pauline tradition. What matters, again, is that the main drive behind Maximuss realistic acknowledgment of our gendered nature is his exposure to the experience of holiness, including holy couples. Concluding RemaRks The Confessors concept of gender and the related themes, such as marriage, sexuality, and pleasure, represent a less appreciated yet meaningful contribution to Christian anthropology. I pointed out that, along with drawing on Gal 3.28 and the Nyssens musings on Gen 1.26, his holistic vision of humankind represents an intellectual transcription of the experiences of the saints. Consequently, I showed that the experience of holiness functions throughout his writings like a hermeneutical key, which enables the reader to give a personally meaningful interpretation to the paradise parable (Gen 23) and the imagery of eschatological perfection, a key without which Maximian anthropology cannot be freed from the suspicion of mythologizing. Furthermore, and related, I pointed out that the same experience
128. For more on the Maximian concept of marriage, see Cooper, The Body in St Maximus the Confessor, 20818. Unfortunately, Cooper ignores the passage from Difculty 10.31a.5. 129. Cf. Mark D. Hart, Reconciliation of Body and Soul: Gregory of Nyssas Deeper Theology of Marriage, Theological Studies 51 (1990): 45078; Mark D. Hart, Gregory of Nyssas Ironic Praise of the Celibate Life, The Heythrop Journal 33:1 (1992): 119; John C. Cavadini, The Sacramentality of Marriage in the Fathers, Pro Ecclesia 17:4 (2008): 44263; Andrius Valevic=ius, The Ontology of Virginity in Gregory of Nyssa, Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 38:14 (1997): 25467.
of holiness allowed Maximus to avoid being entrapped by the theme of a two-stage creation, in which matter he was clearer than the Nyssen (however, a detailed comparison between their respective approaches was not intended here). Technically speaking, Maximus escaped the trap of the two-stage theory by using a famous trilogy, depicting the human journey in terms of origin, middle, and nality, where the origin represents the divine intention concerning humankind and the nality the perfection to which all humans are called, irrespective of gender. This is in fact where the experience of holiness plays a signicant role, deciphering the content of nality as realized eschatology, i.e. a foretaste of states that pertain to the age to come. The major lesson of St. Maximus in this point is that, like with the nality, the paradisal imagery appears as a metaphor of the culminating experience of the saints, possible in this very life. This interpretation makes the Confessors teaching relevant to wide audiences, for alongside presenting gender as embraced by God it primarily maps not the eschatological future, but the parameters of a transformative journey in the here and now, which can be undertaken by each and every one of us. I showed in this context that it is precisely the experience of holiness that enabled Maximus to articulate his spiritual anthropology as pointing to an existential mode attainable by all, irrespective of gender. Moreover, I highlighted his identication of the notion of perfection above gender with the experience of spiritual rebirth and the virtuous lifestyle. This identication made possible the Confessors construct of a spiritual anthropology that, far from unrealistically denying gender, was able to appreciate marriage, sexuality, human multiplication, and pleasure. True, given the monastic formation and interests of the author such topics are not very well represented in the Maximian corpus, not to mention the fact that sometimes they are depicted in gloomy colors. In this regard, however, I argued that alongside the experience of holiness as a key to the system, the reader should be aware of the rhetorical pedagogy pertaining to Byzantine spiritual literature, which employed a variety of devices meant to stir in the reader the desire for both a dispassionate and compassionate life, as illustrated by the saints. All these ramications make Maximuss insights worthwhile in our own context, where gender and the related aspects are usually addressed outside the prospect of a spiritual transformation. What remains unclear is what Maximus meant by attaining dispassion within couples, whilst he suggested that holy couples could enjoy bodily participation. It would be hazardous to look either for explicit answers within, or to infer possible answers from, the writings of a monastic author. Signicant as they could be for a spirituality of married life, such answers
should be looked for elsewhere. It sufces that the Confessor offered various angles on the gender-related aspects that no longer appear as antagonistic with the spiritual pursuits. Doru Costache is Senior Lecturer in Patristics at St. Andrews Greek Orthodox Theological College, a member institute of the Sydney College of Divinity, Sydney, Australia

Living Above Gender: Insights From Saint Maximus The Confessor

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Living above Gender: Insights from Saint Maximus the Confessor

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